Whatever the American people believe this close working relationship might be, the key fact is whatever information is allowed into the public square depends on Big Tech’s willingness to allow the “information” into the public square.

First, a little of the history on this matter before discussing how the Biden administration has opened itself up to significant discovery (written and oral questions under oath) in civil litigation.

On April 15, 2021, ReformtheKakistrocracy.com was one of the first to post an article on Big Tech as a State Actor Having Constitutional Obligations to those whose speech in the public square it denies. At that time, the article had a theoretical evidentiary link based on second-hand media reports. It was part of three articles on breaking up Big Tech without new laws. A second article discussed the fact Congress does not have the constitutional authority to delegate to Big Tech the power to regulate other private parties. The third article discussed how citizens can break up big tech using the techniques of the Left.

Notwithstanding Biden’s broad-ranging Executive Order to twelve agencies to ensure competition in the tech market, it is highly unlikely the Biden administration will seriously take on Big Tech, with new legislation, new regulations, or challenge it in the courts. Big Tech companies are the friends, donors, protectors, and the sycophant speech censor for the Biden administration.

Notwithstanding the rhetoric, if the Biden administration wanted to break up Big Tech, it could bring an antitrust action today. It has not. If Biden wanted to subject Big Tech to lawsuits, he could ask Congress to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that provides Big Tech with immunity from suit. Biden would likely have Republican support but he has not asked Congress for help. Or, Biden could direct the FCC to narrow Section 230 immunity through rulemaking by limiting the section to child pornography. He has not directed it. So, more talk, talk and talk from a politician.

To take on Big Tech, other ways must be explored.

The most likely way to take on Big Tech/White House censorship will be in Former President Trump’s class-action lawsuit against Big Tech. Trump claims Big Tech’s close cooperation with the government makes it a state actor. The Biden administration could also join the lawsuit if it truly believes what it claims. It has not.

Trump’s lawsuit has relied on much of the same public information as my April article, which is not sufficient evidence for a court of law.

All that changed with Jen Psaki’s admission, at a press conference on July 15, 2021, that the Biden administration is in regular conversation with Big Tech on censoring “misinformation.” Since the press conference, social media has exploded with commentary on the issue. More commentary is not needed. The White House secretary’s actual words are what people need to read to appreciate how she opens up many lines of discovery in Trump’s civil lawsuit.

A complete transcript of Psaki’s comments on “misinformation” opens the White House to civil discovery procedures.

[The content in brackets in the brackets after Psaki’s statements identifies the information that could be obtained through civil discovery.]

Alex: (16:19)
“Thanks, Jen. Can you talk a little bit more about this request for tech companies to be more aggressive in policing misinformation. Has the administration been in touch with any of these companies and are there any actions that the federal government can take to ensure their cooperation? Because we’ve seen from the start, there’s not a lot of action on some of these platforms.”

Jen Psaki: (16:38)
“Sure. Well, first we are in regular touch with these social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff, but also members of our COVID-19 team. Given as Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic.”

[Possible Civil Discovery: Identification of all participants in the conversation, the substance of each conversation, documents identifying specific disinformation and the basis for determining disinformation.]

Jen Psaki: (16:57)
“In terms of actions, Alex, that we have taken, or we’re working to take, I should say, from the federal government, we’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General’s office. We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation. We’re working with doctors and medical professionals to connected medical experts who are popular with their audiences with accurate information and boost trusted content. So we’re helping get trusted content out there.”

[Possible Civil Discovery: Identification of all disinformation being conducted and tracked by the Surgeon General’s office, all post flagged for Facebook, the identity of all “trusted” doctors and professionals who will do the outreach.]

[Psaki discusses other issues not relevant to Covid – 19 “misinformation.]

Jen Psaki: (17:27)
“We also created the COVID Community Court to get factual information into the hands of local messengers. And we’re also investing, as you’ll have seen, in the President’s, the Vice President’s, and Dr. Fauci’s time in meeting with influencers who also have large reaches to a lot of these target audiences who can spread and share accurate information. You saw an example of that yesterday. I believe that the video will be out for tomorrow. I think that was your question, Steve, yesterday, full follow-up there.”

[Possible Civil Discovery: Identification of all local messengers and influencers who share the administration’s version of the facts. Discovery would also include the soon-to-be-released video, who made it, what information was relied on in making it, and What is the COCID-19 court, what will it do and who is on it?]

Jen Psaki: (17:56)
“There are also proposed changes that we have made to social media platforms, including Facebook. And those specifically are four key steps. One, that they measure and publicly share the impact of misinformation on their platform. Facebook should provide, publicly and transparently, data on the reach of Covid – 19 vaccine misinformation. Not just engagement, but the reach of the misinformation, and the audience that it’s reaching. That will help us ensure we’re getting accurate information to people. This should be provided not just to researchers, but to the public so that the public knows and understands what is accurate and inaccurate.”

[Possible Civil Discovery: Identification of how the government believes Facebook should measure misinformation and the reach of such misinformation? How the government believes Facebook should inform the public of what is the specific misinformation. Additionally, identification of the target audiences and the “accurate” information government wants to reach the public?]

Jen Psaki: (18:32)
“Second, that we have proposed that they create a robust enforcement strategy that bridges their properties and provides transparency about the rules. So I think this was a question asked before. There are about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms. All of them remain active on Facebook, despite some even being banned on other platforms, including ones that Facebook owns.”

[Possible Civil Discovery: Identification of what the administration considers an appropriate, robust, enforcement strategy Facebook should undertake?  Also, what is the identity of the 12 people producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation and the specific misinformation?]

Jen Psaki: (18:58)
“Third, it’s important to take faster action against harmful posts. As you all know, information travels quite quickly on social media platforms. Sometimes it’s not accurate, and Facebook needs to move more quickly to remove harmful violative posts. Posts that will be within their policies for removal often remain up for days. That’s too long. The information spreads too quickly.”

[Possible Civil Discovery: Identification of the administration’s discussion of what does it want Facebook to do “more quickly?” Additionally, what does the White House consider a quick removal, and how does it determine what “misinformation” should be removed?]

Jen Psaki: (19:19)
“Finally, we have proposed they promote quality information sources in their feed algorithm. Facebook has repeatedly shown that they have the leverage to promote quality information. We’ve seen them effectively do this in their algorithm over low-quality information. And they’ve chosen not to use it in this case, and that’s certainly an area that would have an impact. So these are certainly the proposals. We engage with them regularly, and they certainly understand what our asks are.”

[Possible Civil Discovery: What proposal has the administration made to Facebook on promoting quality information on their algorithms? What does the administration determine quality information? Is the White House following the guidelines in the Information Quality Act to determine “quality information?” Identify each time the administration has engaged with Facebook or any other Big Tech company on this issue?

[The Information Quality Act requires Federal agencies to comply with data quality guidelines to ensure and maximize the quality, utility, objectivity, and integrity of the information disseminated by the Federal government.]

Alex: (19:45)
“One of the problems with vaccines right now is that they have become politicized. The White House has obviously made the calculation that it’s important to be more aggressive in confronting this information, but is there at all concern that that could backfire and further contribute to politicization? And is there anything that you can do to prevent that at this point?”

Jen Psaki: (20:02)
“Well, you’re absolutely right, I should say, Alex, in that we have to be very careful and we are mindful of being quite careful of not politicizing the effectiveness of vaccines. The fact that they can save lives, young people, old people, middle-of-the-road people. It’s important for us, we’ve made a calculation, to push back on misinformation. You’re right.”

[Possible Civil Discovery: Identify all the information relied upon in making the calculation to push back on misinformation? Who reviewed the data to make that determination and was all the data subject to the guidelines of the Information Quality Act?]

Jen Psaki: (20:22)
“But that’s one of the reasons, as Dr. Murthy was conveying, we have empowered, engaged, funded local voices because they are often the most trusted voices. Doctors, medical experts, clergy, people who are civic leaders in communities. That’s where we are putting most of our resources, even as we are working to combat misinformation that’s traveling online or traveling, unfortunately out of the mouths of elected officials from time to time.”

[Possible Civil Discovery: Identification of all local “trusted” voices to be participants in the administration’s outreach, as well as what resources the administration deploying and the cost of such effort?]

With the July 15, 2021 press conference, Jen Psaki, opened up the administration to answer questions under oath in a civil deposition or by written question. This discovery will likely be used by Trump’s attorneys. With even reasonably good lawyering, the public will discover what the Biden administration believes is misinformation and what is good information, who possesses which type of information, and the rigors of ensuring “good information” is tested against the Information Quality Act. It will also let the public know what information the Biden administration wants us to know is the “truth.” That by itself will be interesting in a day when 58% of people believe media has become “the enemy of the people.”

The post How the Biden Adminstration is Helping Trump’s Lawsuits Against Big Tech appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

A regular, low-information individual who relies on information being digested for them might look at Fauci, The CDC, The WHO, The Mainstream Media and Big Tech being on the same page, and conclude (or concluded for them) that a legitimate consensus exists and accept it. What they don’t consider is that this was a coordinated, lockstep propaganda arm aimed at protecting China and attacking President Trump.

Many gave credence to the idea that COVID came from a bat at a wet market which didn’t sell bats, let alone the horseshoe bat which COVID originated from that wasn’t native within hundreds of miles of Wuhan in order to make bat soup (a meme). Meanwhile, the Wuhan lab, which studied coronaviruses and gain of function, had documented safety and containment measure violations. Yet, the idea it could have escaped from the lab was deemed a fringe, right-wing conspiracy theory.

We reported when Japan’s Vice Prime Minister Tarō Asō labeled the WHO as the CHO (China Health Organization), when it appeared The WHO’s clear goal was to save face for China rather than investigate the pandemic. The WHO ignored Taiwan who handled the pandemic well from the beginning, in order to not offend China by giving Taiwan legitimacy.

We reported when Facebook’s “fact checkers” were connected to the Wuhan Lab and provided mere anecdotes for the basis of fact checking.

From our piece Facebook Fact Checkers Connected To Wuhan Lab:

“The claim that the Wuhan Lab had no biosecurity failures was written by the Wuhan Lab connected Danielle E. Anderson. In her reviewer response, she states:

‘I have worked in this exact laboratory at various times for the past two years,’ she said. ‘I can personally attest to the strict control and containment measures implemented while working there. The staff at WIV are incredibly competent, hardworking, and are excellent scientists with superb track records.’”

Yet, such an anecdote was in direct contrast with a Washington Post piece from 2018, which published cables detailing poor security and containment protocol, and raised concern for the potential of a new SARS outbreak. 

From the Washington Post article:

“What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.”

Once this outbreak did occur, the Washington Post abandoned this earlier reporting entirely, to focus on placing blame on the Trump Administration.

Now, the Washington Post is being forced to confront what has always been inescapably true; that a leak from the Wuhan Lab is the most likely source of COVID-19. And yet, their motives in obfuscating that reality all this time remain transparent, front and center, even in their new reporting: They wanted Trump to be wrong.

In the new piece from the Washington Post:

“The laboratory leak theory also deserves more careful scrutiny. This is not to stigmatize Asians or to bash China, nor to embrace the Trump administration’s use of the laboratory leak theory to divert attention from its failures. The reason to investigate is the persistence of unanswered questions about research being carried out at the Wuhan institute under Shi Zhengli to modify viral genomes to give them new properties, such as the ability to infect a new host species or transmit from one host to another more easily.”

The Washington Post now acts as if they’ve always entertained this idea, which has remained in place through a process of elimination. This is the same Washington Post that wrote hit pieces on Senator Tom Cotton for even suggesting it.

The Washington Post last year:

“Now, we don’t have evidence that this disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says,” Cotton said. “And China right now is not giving any evidence on that question at all.”

In response to Cotton’s remarks, as well as in previous interviews with The Washington Post, numerous experts dismissed the possibility the coronavirus may be man-made.”

The Washington Post purposefully conflated the idea of a leak from the Wuhan Lab with the idea of a virus being “man made” in order to dismiss it, when Cotton’s comments implied nothing of the sort.

However, now it is becoming mainstream knowledge that the Wuhan Lab engaged in Gain of Function research, a process of altering viruses to study how they may mutate and spread in the future.

The Libertarian Republic previously reported on Job Listings at the Wuhan Lab specifically for studying Gain of Function, which were posted prior to the outbreak.

Last week, Fauci also changed his tune, stating that he was not convinced that the COVID-19 virus was naturally occurring.

From The New York Post:

‘“No actually. I am not convinced about that. I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened,’ Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said, according to Fox News.

‘Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus,’ he added.”

However, this is in direct contrast to comments he made last year regarding the Wuhan Lab Theory when it was raised by President Trump.

From CNN:

“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.”

At the time, he sounded rather convinced—enough so that CNN called it a takedown of President Trump.

It’s important to note that there hasn’t been any new evidence or information in the timeline between Fauci’s opposing takes on the Wuhan Lab. The only thing that has changed, is the presidential administration.

All of these forces worked in unison to protect China and attack Trump. It was never about the truth until it finally cost them no political capital to acknowledge it, and there was no more political capital to be made by denying it.

The post Wuhan Lab Theory Gains Traction, Drags MSM Kicking And Screaming appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Obama Derangement Syndrome was also real, and it had a distinct racial tint to it. It was kind of hard to miss, what with all the birther/secret Mooslem conspiracy crap flying around. Nobody would try and pull that shit with a hypothetical President McCain or a President Romney. A lot of folks on the right weren’t so mad at Obama’s policies as much as they couldn’t believe a black guy was running circles around them. I know this because as a native of outstate Missouri (not the most tolerant place in the world,) I heard racial slurs tossed around when referring to our 44th president several times in casual conversation. Obama broke the brains of many rural Americans.

Trump Derangement Syndrome was also real, and I may have even had a little touch of it myself. But unlike the other two, I think quite a bit of “TDS” was justified.

I don’t think there will be a Biden Derangement Syndrome. The only derangement of note would maybe be his own. Plus, he’s just not worthy of getting all that worked up over. He is largely seen as a genial (if befuddled) placeholder president serving as a transition between the constant outrage of the Trump years and…whatever comes next. Could be President Harris. Could be something else. No one knows. Think of Biden as a bandage; but even a bandage can do damage if poorly applied.

I do think that another phenomenon is taking place, though—call it Biden Regret Syndrome.

To that end, I wrote in a prior piece:

“I’ll risk taking a few licks on policy in exchange for knowing our president isn’t a total piece of shit and a garbage-tier human being.”

Well, we have a president who isn’t a total piece of shit and a garbage-tier human being. Congratulations. But now the hard part—the licks on policy. They’re coming.

The most obvious problem with the new administration is the absolute balls-to-the-wall spending frenzy. As Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) noted on April 5:

Granted, a lot of this started during the last administration and was fueled by the COVID-related economic meltdown. But jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick, the spending has really hit the fan now. President Biden doubled down on the “stimulus” beeswax.

But wait, there’s more!

An ongoing joke in never Trump circles was that every week was “infrastructure week.” But now, we’re going to get a real infrastructure bill, and we’re going to get it good and hard. Cost estimates on this latest round of profligate spending may run up to two trillion dollars. That’s trillion with a “t.”

And just like the stimulus bills got hung up on what was really stimulus versus what was just part of the omnibus, the infrastructure thing is going to get bollixed up by arguments over what the word “infrastructure” means.

To most folks, the word conjures up images of roads, bridges, waterways, railroads, utilities, and such.

At the end of the day, “infrastructure” will end up meaning whatever progressives want it to mean. Everything they like will be infrastructure and everything they dislike will be racist, bigoted, homophobic, misogynistic, and so forth. You know the drill.

Meanwhile, as any decent economist could have predicted, when trillions of dollars are printed and dumped into the economy, inflation is on the rise. CNN acted completely surprised at this turn of events, leading to this delicious headline:

You don’t say? Meanwhile, the U.S. government is doing an Urkel, asking coyly: “Did I do that?” Why, yes. Yes, you did. We aren’t at Weimar Germany or Zimbabwe levels of inflation yet, but maybe you can see it from here. I’ve been meaning to paint the inside of our house; maybe we’ll just paper everything over with greenbacks instead.

Speaking of spending— the only Biden cabinet-level nominee who has been shot down so far was Neera Tanden. That’s doubly ironic, because never before has the Office of Management and Budget been more useless. I mean, we don’t really do budgets anymore. Budgeting requires saying “yes” to some things and “no” to others. “No” isn’t in the current budgeting vocabulary.

As Coolio might say if he was a policy wonk:

Been spendin’ most their lives
livin’ in the Keynesian’s paradise

At the same time, interest rates remain at rock bottom for as far as the eyes can see, rewarding spending and punishing savings. This is contributing greatly to the current housing bubble. I have a money market account that is paying, I shit you not, .03%. That’s .0003. We’re this close to having negative interest rates.

At least the Biden administration isn’t talking about using executive orders to roll back gun rights. Oh wait, yes it is. The usual boogie men are targeted: red flag laws, ghost guns, and…stabilizing braces? The president also nominated a gun control advocate to head every libertarian’s favorite convenience store, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. I’m sure that’ll go over well.

There is even talk of reforming, or getting rid of, Senate filibusters. I have mixed feelings on that. Filibusters have been abused by both major parties for the last twenty years with no end in sight.

Last but not least (for now) is the specter of “court packing.” In the run up to the November elections, Democrats, enraged by Trump’s nomination and confirmation of three Supreme Court justices during his term, floated the idea of expanding the number of justices on the court. Then-candidate Biden was a little wishy washy when pressed on the issue before finally coming down against it (kind of) in October.

(Many people don’t know that, like the filibuster, the size of the Supreme Court is not mentioned in the Constitution. The filibuster is a special Senate rule, while the size of the court is set by statute.)

Lo and behold, on April 9, the Oval Office announced the formation of the ominous sounding “Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.” One of the agenda items, not surprisingly, is “the membership and size of the Court.” Whatever do you think their findings will be? The suspense is killing me.

The whole idea is B-A-N-A-N-A-S for several reasons:

• Even FDR couldn’t successfully pull off packing the Supreme Court.
• No state has a Supreme Court of its own with more than nine members. So any argument that U.S. Supreme Court is overworked is probably bupkus.
• Most importantly, even if they could add (say) four liberal justices to the court, that would only be good for a generation. At some point those “extra” justices have to retire or croak like all the rest, and who knows who’ll be in office to appoint their replacements. So this would be a whole lot of trouble for what amounts to a fairly short term gain.

Luckily the idea of packing the court appears to be dead on arrival. That’s coming from no less an authority than Speaker Pelosi.

Will that hold in the future, however? Would Speaker Ocasio-Cortez, for example, have such qualms? Right now the “grown ups” are allegedly in charge, but only barely.

What we need more than anything right now is a strong opposition party. We certainly do not have that in today’s GOP. Not only are they more focused on posturing and riling up their base than governing, they don’t have the numbers to stop much of anything right now.

Divided government was a distinct possibility right up until the GOP blew both of the U.S. Senate elections in Georgia. The Lincoln Project, a controversial never-Trumper group, had some entertainment value right up to the point where Trump actually lost. I figured with him gone, they’d do a “mission accomplished” and ride off into the sunset. But no, they had to go after Georgia Sens. Loeffler and Perdue too, thus helping to hand the Senate to the Dems by the thinnest of margins. Thanks for nothing, Lincoln Project!

Trump-hating libertarians (both small and big “L”) will have to ride out the Biden presidency as best we can, hoping that whatever damage he does is less than Trump would have done. Only time will tell.

Image: TLR composite, Gage Skidmore (Biden)

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For all the predictions and talk of a slump in support among evangelicals, it appears Donald Trump’s election loss was not at the hands of religious voters.

As an analyst of religious data, I’ve been crunching data released in March 2021 that breaks down the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by faith. And by and large there was very little notable change in the vote choice of religious groups between 2016 and 2020 – in fact, for most faiths, support for Trump ticked up slightly. Instead, it was among those who do not identify with any religion that Trump saw a noticeable drop.

Despite exit poll data initially pointing toward a drop in white evangelical support for Trump in 2020, the latest data shows this not to be the case. The data is based on the Cooperative Election Study, which has become the gold standard for assessing vote choice because of its sample size and its ability to accurately represent the voting population of the United States.

In fact, with 80% of white evangelicals backing Trump in 2020, support actually ticked up from the 78% who voted for him four years earlier.
Trump also saw two-point increases in the vote of nonwhite evangelicals, white Catholics, Black Protestants and Jews compared with four years ago.

These differences are not statistically significant, and as such it would be wrong to say it definitively shows Trump gained among religious groups. But it indicates that among the largest religious groups in the U.S., voting patterns in the November 2020 vote seemed to hold largely steady with four years earlier. Trump did not manage to win significantly larger shares, nor was winner Joe Biden able to peel away religious voters from the Trump coalition.

Losing the nonreligious

However, there are some interesting and statistically significant trends when you break down the data further. Nonwhite Catholics shifted four points toward Donald Trump. This fits with what we saw in places like the heavily Hispanic and Catholic Miami-Dade County, Florida, where Trump’s overall vote share improved from 35% to 46% between 2016 and 2020.

Trump also managed to pick up 15 percentage points among the Mormon vote. On first glance this would appear a large jump. But it makes sense when you factor in that around 15% of the Mormon vote in 2016 went to Utah native and fellow Mormon Evan McMullin, who ran in that year’s election as a third-party candidate. Without McMullin in 2020, Trump picked up Mormon voters – as did Joe Biden, who did slightly better than Hillary Clinton had among Mormons.

There is also some weak evidence that the Republican candidate picked up some support among smaller religious groups in the U.S., like Hindus and Buddhists. Trump increased his share among these two groups by four percentage points each. But it is important to note that these two groups combined constitute only about 1.5% of the American population. As such, a four-point increase translates to only a very small fraction of the overall popular vote.

What is clear is that Trump lost a good amount of ground among the religious unaffiliated. Trump’s share of the atheist vote declined from 14% in 2016 to just 11% in 2020; the decline among agnostics was slightly larger, from 23% to 18%.

Additionally, those who identify as “nothing in particular” – a group that represents 21% of the overall U.S. population – were not as supportive of Trump in his reelection bid. His vote share among this group dropped by three percentage points, while Biden’s rose by over seven points, with the Democrat managing to win over many of the “nothing in particulars” who had backed third-party candidates in the 2016 election.

Looked at broadly, Trump did slightly better among Christians and other smaller religious groups in the U.S. but lost ground among the religiously unaffiliated. What these results cannot account for, however, is record turnout. There were nearly 22 million more votes cast in 2020 than in 2016. So while vote shares may not have changed that much, the number of votes cast helped swing the election for the Democratic candidate. A more detailed breakdown of voter turnout is due to be released in July 2021 by the team that administers the Cooperative Election Study; that will bring the picture of religion and the 2020 vote into clearer focus.

Ryan Burge, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Eastern Illinois University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Ted Eytan

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Image: Tyler Merbler

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“White passing” is a loathsome, offensive phrase. No one is responsible for the physical cues that others take from one’s appearance, and you’re not obligated to sport a sandwich board itemizing your racial breakdown.

Fredi was a strikingly beautiful mulatta and exceptional actress, yet Jim Crow segregation barred her from playing non-black roles. The Chicago Defender quoted her in 1945: “Frankly, I do not ascribe to the stupid theory of white supremacy and to try to hide the fact that I am a Negro for economic or any other reasons. If I do, I would be agreeing to be a Negro makes me inferior.”

By identifying solely as Negro, she did tacitly endorse supremacist ideology’s assertion that one-drop of Negro blood disqualifies one from entering the realm of “pure” whiteness. Yet Fredi had no choice; no mixed-race option existed for her to embrace, and that surely would have led to “Trying to be white!” accusations. White passing charges endure even now, as humanity evolves.

The 2020 Census allowed multiracials to again choose multiple boxes, though the government often collapses those responses to reflect exclusively minority race tabulations. That nuanced application of the “one-drop rule” notwithstanding, latter day Fredi Washingtons, like former actress and British royal Meghan Markle, unflinchingly avail themselves of identity choices independent of the societally imposed black/white binary.

But during the 2020 election, political expediency prohibited Kamala Harris from publicly embracing her Asian heritage, and the media’s current insistence on capitalizing “Black” and “White” reinforces the boundaries between supposedly mutually exclusive races. It’s regressive, part and parcel of a campaign that can best be described as willful resegregation.

Consider ABC’s “mixed-ish“ 2019 sitcom about an ‘80s interracial couple and their three kids relocating from a hippie commune to suburbia. The parents struggle with their new life’s challenges; their kids negotiate public schooling in which classmates have difficulty pigeonholing them racially. The family’s encounters typify the struggle in finding one’s identity when the larger society can’t determine to which sociopolitical bloc you belong.

The initial episodes entertained; I even chuckled at installment one’s slave ship joke. Considering Mixed-ish is a prequel spin-off of the popular Black-ish, the writers pleasantly surprised by not overly insinuating one-drop commentary into the dialogue — until the third episode’s treatment of “black hair.”

Then, they let loose with what you had to know was coming. The three siblings are unquestionably black, and their desire to wear their hair au naturel is a sign of their black pride.

Academia’s most notorious one-drop devotees, critical race theorists, have scant objection to Mixed-ish, yet a particular Marxist critique on a Facebook group dedicated to positive mixed-race identity caught my eye. Brother Karl would ostensibly view the show not through the lens of an interracial family, but via proletarians abandoning their communalist ideals to embrace a bourgeois lifestyle centered on careerism and consumerism.

America’s problems do primarily manifest along class lines, but neo-Marxists cannot abandon race, to their detriment. They critically reinterpret Marx’s class conflict meditations into one wherein history is primarily the dramatic struggle between colonialist, oppressive white racists and exploited groups “of color.”

After eight years of the first mixed-ish president marginalizing his MulattX heritage and propagating identity politics, enough working class whites perceived Democrats as hostile to their concerns and swung the 2016 election to Donald Trump—who expertly exploited their fears. 45’s inept handling of the COVID-19 epidemic combined with Black Lives Matter’s proletariat insurrection following George Floyd’s murder combined to deny him reelection, though.

The response that BLM’s impressionable disciples cannot rebut is “All Black Lives Should Matter.” Gangbangers kill far more blacks than do white cops, but that doesn’t fit BLM’s narrative. Even considering the significantly fewer incidents of police shooting and killing unarmed minorities, we need to honestly acknowledge the cause-and-effect relationship in play. Some degree of perceived police brutality is more about unacknowledged biases cultivated through overexposure in high crime areas than naked racism.

Narratives outweigh facts, though. Economist and erstwhile Marxist Thomas Sowell argues that progressives have no interest in creating black wealth—only with the imperative to redistribute what exists, e.g. slavery reparations.

Psychological manipulation compelling kneeling and confessing white skin privilege confirms that what many cannot cultivate through the internal work necessary for individual spiritual growth, they attempt to appropriate from others and redistribute to the collective via repugnant guilt-trips.

Blackness and whiteness are both value-neutral, yet for years I wandered in the darkest mental ignorance before discovering that my purpose on this planet was not as a loyal servant to “woke” racial identity politics. Would that Fredi could have realized the same.

Charles Michael Byrd is a freelance opinion writer whose pieces deal with racial identity politics and religion. He is of white, black, and Native heritage. He lives in Queens, N.Y.. You can follow him on Twitter @ChasbyrdM.

Image: Gage Skidmore

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No matter the outcome of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, the Republican Party must now decide whether to maintain or abandon Trump-era policies during the Biden administration. Among them is Trump’s “America First” foreign policy agenda.

Trump portrayed the United States as a dominant, self-sufficient world leader that needs little but subservience from other countries. He was skeptical of trade and hostile to China, and he eschewed global diplomacy in favor of military saber-rattling.

That may not be the future of GOP foreign policy, according to my political science research. I analyzed four surveys taken during the Trump administration asking Americans about foreign policy issues. Breaking down responses by both party and age, I found that younger Republicans diverge from Trump’s “America First” agenda.

In fact, on some foreign policy issues, from China to trade, young Republicans are closer on the ideological spectrum to the Democratic mainstream than to their Republican elders.

1. Globalization

Trump espoused economic protectionism and demonstrated a general aversion to trade and other aspects of economic globalization. But young Republicans don’t necessarily feel the same way, according to a 2017 survey from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Despite Trump’s description of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, as “perhaps the worst trade deal ever made,” half of Republicans under 35 view it as good for the U.S. economy.

Republicans 35 and older were more inclined toward Trump’s position: Only one-third thought it was good for the economy.

Among Democrats surveyed by the Chicago Council, approval of NAFTA was above 70% for all age groups.

2. China

The surveys showed general bipartisan agreement across all age groups that the United States is militarily superior to China.

But younger Republicans were nearly twice as likely as older ones to believe that China has a stronger economy than the United States – 43% for Republicans under 35 versus 23% for those 35 and older, according to the Chicago Council survey.

Recognition of China’s economic power, however, does not lead younger GOP members to demonstrate a Trump-style hostility toward China. In Fox News’ May 2020 poll, 42% of Republicans under 35 identified China as the “worst enemy of the United States.” Among Republicans 35 and older, 60% did.

Age-based differences of opinion on China translate into age-based policy preferences among Republicans. The vast majority of older Republicans – 81% – supported Trump’s punishing tariffs on Chinese imports, a 2019 Chicago Council survey found. Just 60% of Republicans under 35 agreed.

Democrats were mostly consistent on attitudes toward China. Around 1 in 5 view China as the worst enemy of the United States regardless of age; around 1 in 4 support raising tariffs on Chinese imports.

3. Defense spending

When it comes to funding for the U.S. military and national defense, both parties show a generational divide.

In the Chicago Council’s 2017 survey, 64% of Republicans 35 and older said national defense spending should be expanded. Just 40% of Republicans under 35 agreed.

Few Democrats of any age think defense spending should be expanded, and some young Democrats diverge from party elders in thinking the defense budget should be cut. Half of Democrats under 35 would cut defense spending, and one-third of older Democrats would.

A more bipartisan future?

I study the political views of young people to shine a light on where American foreign policy may be headed in the coming years and decades.

Young Americans are voting and running for national office at historic rates. The number of millennial congressional candidates nearly tripled between 2018 and 2020, according to the Millennial Action Project. In last year’s election, 251 candidates for Congress were age 45 or younger; 97 of those young candidates were Republicans.

As more young candidates start to win and occupy office, their views will influence the policy agendas of their party in the post-Trump era.

The surveys I studied show that younger Republicans hold more centrist attitudes on economic globalization, China and defense spending than party elders. In a political climate defined by intense polarization, this data may hint at a slow trend toward more bipartisan agreement on certain foreign policy issues.

Jonathan Schulman, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, Northwestern University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Mark Nozell, Flickr

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What essentially happened here? Hawley was canceled by proxy. Although he arguably played no role in what happened on Capitol Hill on January 6, his intentions to object to the Electoral College results certifying Joe Biden’s win over President Trump, and more importantly Hawley’s association with Trump, was used to paint him as a key figure in what the Left refers to as an act of sedition. Guilt by association.

I find it ironic that the Senator’s political career could come skidding to a halt in the same fashion that his time in the US Senate started. You see, in my opinion, Josh Hawley was ELECTED by proxy as well.

During his senatorial campaign in 2017-18 (launched less than a year after becoming Missouri Attorney General), Hawley was criticized by his fellow Republicans for his lackadaisical approach to the campaign, sluggish fundraising numbers, and even called out by US Rep. Ann Wagner for failing to appear at a primary debate event.

By July of 2018, the State GOP took matters into their own hands and authorized the party to begin spending fundraiser monies on Hawley’s campaign before the conclusion of the state primary, in which 10 other Republicans were vying for the seat. The party had previously authorized this action only two other times in 12 years. President Trump had already endorsed Hawley in the election at this point, and the state GOP was just responding in kind. Grassroots opinions be damned, the establishment had already made their choice, and their “Golden Boy” was it.

Hawley didn’t even make it to a Lincoln Days campaigning dinner event in his own hometown of Columbia, despite his campaign knowing ahead of time that campaign staffers wouldn’t be allowed to speak on his behalf. That’s when then Lt. Governor Mike Parson, a keynote speaker at the event, used up some of his speech time stumping in Hawley’s stead.

But amazingly, it worked for Hawley. Most conservative voters in Missouri were won over with nothing more than President Trump’s endorsement. Some didn’t even know there were other Republican candidates in the primary. Trump endorsed Hawley and that was all they needed to know. Score one for populism.

Josh Hawley mailed it in for political gain. Now his detractors are doing the same. What goes around comes around, I guess.

Image: Hawley campaign ad, YouTube

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I honestly assumed his presidential run was a publicity stunt and he would flame out early. He got off to a roaring start in his very first campaign speech, where he famously smeared Mexican immigrants as rapists (among other things.)

In any decent universe, the campaign would have been over right there. But something strange happened: people on the right loved it. And the more crazy, off the wall shit Trump said, the more popular he became. People said things like “he’s only saying what the rest of us are thinking!” or “he tells it like it is!” Saying either such thing may be a tacit admission that you are, in fact, an asshole.

Meanwhile, the American left had smeared every Republican since Eisenhower as a Nazi (at worst) and a fascist (at best.) So when an actual fascist (okay, fascist-adjacent) candidate showed up, they had no credibility when attacking him as such.

When it became clear that somehow Trump had tapped into something big (but not necessarily good) on the American right, however, I still thought there was no way he would win the Republican nomination. And when he did win that nomination, I figured he had no chance of knocking out Hillary. Yet, thanks to about 80,000 votes spread across Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, he did exactly that.

His presidency has been a wild ride, to say the least. I’m not sure what else we should have expected; his “movement” seemed to be largely based on anger. That kind of thing usually doesn’t end well. While it is true that American politics often swings like a pendulum, I’ll probably never understand how we went from “hope and change” to “rage and more rage.” Instead of preaching the lifting up of people, he focused more on tearing people down. It was a weird time in American politics.

One usually doesn’t have to wait until Inauguration Day to write up a post-mortem on a presidency. With Trump, however, there was never a dull moment. There were still many questions left even at the very end. Take, I don’t know, for example, the Capitol riot of January 6 and his subsequent historic second impeachment on January 13. Then there were questions about who he might pardon in his final hours. (Hint: no Snowden, no Assange, no Ulbricht, not even Joe Exotic. Drat.)

But now that his presidency is finally over, here is the good, the bad, and the ugly according to yours truly. This piece is quite long, so I am going to split it into two pieces. This week we’ll handle the good and part of the bad. Next week, we’ll handle the rest of the bad and all of the ugly.

The good

As hinted at in the title of this piece, President Trump absolutely crushed it when it came to appointing judges. He appointed over two hundred federal judges, including three Supreme Court justices. Three Supreme Court appointments in one term is not the record (somehow William Howard Taft managed six), but it’s impressive nonetheless. And all are staunchly conservative. Trump actually bothered to listen to people in the know, such as the Federalist Society, before making these appointments. (It would have served him well to listen to them on some other things.)

His success at appointing judges was partly luck, however. (Luck is a big part of his life story.) The Republicans gambled big and won then they decided to stonewall President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016, in hopes that Trump would beat Clinton, which seemed a rather fanciful idea at the time. Then Democrats gambled big and lost when Ruth Bader Ginsburg had the chance to retire before Obama left office but she didn’t. Consider also that filibusters for Supreme Court nominations went by the wayside thanks to the “nuclear option” in 2017; without this, none of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees would likely have been confirmed.

One of the Trump administration’s greatest legacies will be deregulation on a scale not seen since Reagan (though, our friends at Reason would argue that it’s a mixed bag.) We also got some sweet tax cuts. The economy was certainly going great guns up until the COVID-19 pandemic, as well. Wall Street was apparently the only part of New York City (outside Staten Island) that really dug this presidency.

Did President Trump start any new wars? No. Did he get us completely out of any of the old wars? Also no. But baby steps are better than no steps.

The Trump White House, in its last week, actually put out a list of the administration’s accomplishments. It was posted at whitehouse.gov, but then taken down shortly after President Biden’s inauguration. Fear not, it is preserved for posterity here. In the typical humble Trump fashion, this brag sheet runs 12,155 words and twenty-one pages (with a size 10 FreeSans font.)

I will also say this: Trump was genuine. Genuinely awful most of the time, but genuine just the same. His candor was refreshing even if it was often also usually aggravating. And his Twitter account was occasionally funny. So there’s that.

The bad (brace yourselves, this is a long section)

Of all the lies Donald Trump told during his campaign and presidency, of which there are literally thousands, perhaps the most irksome one was that he would build a wall on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it. As of this writing, only about 450 miles of that has been built, some of which was replacement for existing fencing. (The actual border is almost two thousand miles total.) And it goes without saying that Mexico is paying zilch.

President Trump did some very non-libertarian things regarding trade, and he did them unilaterally. He never saw a tariff he didn’t like, which is a stark reversal from the previous eighty-plus years of Republican presidents. He also savaged NAFTA and bragged about replacing it with the USMCA, but the changes are largely cosmetic.

The former president also did some very non-libertarian things regarding immigration, and again largely unilaterally. The infamous “Muslim ban” was maybe the most notorious action; other greatest hits include the actions against DACA and family separation on the Mexican border.

(Perhaps this abuse of executive power will lead to some future restrictions on the same? Don’t bet on it. Democrats want to be able to do stuff like this, too, when their guy/gal is in charge. And we didn’t even get into pardon power.)

Federal spending under the Trump administration was profligate, even before the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent stimulus spending orgies. As it stands, we are a staggering $27 trillion dollars in the hole with no end in sight, compared to about $20 trillion when Trump took office. It is probably going to get worse under Biden before it gets better. A trillion here and a trillion there, and sooner or later you’re talking about real money.

The Donald’s use of Twitter was also quite exasperating. It is estimated that he sent a staggering 34,000 tweets from the beginning of his campaign in 2015 to the bitter end in 2021. Many of these were at odd hours of the night and the content would vary wildly. He favored Twitter as his method of communication so much so that a Congressman introduced the wonderfully titled COVFEFE Act that would have officially made all of his tweets government records. It unfortunately failed.

(One major upside to the Biden presidency is that you’ll never wake up in the morning and wonder what crazy bile your president spewed on Twitter in the overnight hours.)

Some other aspects of Trump’s governing style were troublesome. Instead of a coherent strategy to achieve specific goals, he largely practiced government-by-tantrum. He leaped from crisis to crisis, many of his own making, putting out fires only to start new ones.  He has the attention span of a gnat and an intellectual curiosity about as deep as your average puddle—and he governed accordingly.

Exaggeration, puffery, braggadocio, and wild promises were hallmarks of this presidency. One of the other most glaring lies Mr. Trump (repeatedly) told during his administration was that he had a wonderful, great health care plan that would replace Obamacare. That mysterious, elusive plan was never unveiled because, much like Santa Claus, Sasquatch, or Candy Mountain, it never existed. At best it was a MacGuffin, at worst it was a delusion.

President Trump was unpredictable on policy, turning on a dime and contradicting himself (and his subordinates) almost effortlessly time and again. But he was very predictable behavior-wise, in that he would instantly react to anyone’s criticism of him by lashing out against them on Twitter. And if you spoke nice about him, he would speak nice about you. Scratch his back and he’d scratch yours. Loyalty was everything. The boss is always right, and if he’s not, it’s always someone else’s fault. That’s classic crime boss behavior.

And that’s all for Part 1. Tune in next week for “So Long, and Thanks for All the Judges – Part 2.”

Image Composite by TLR. Trump image: Gage Skidmore

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